Recent years have seen increasing demand for introducing systems such as home energy management system (HEMS) and smart grid to office buildings, hotels, homes, and other buildings to perform controls such as remote and centralized control of apparatuses to thereby achieve, for example, energy management, enhanced convenience, and increased energy saving. From the view of energy saving, in Europe as well, there has been a strong demand for the introduction of systems that enable remote control of air-conditioning apparatuses from an outside of homes, and systems that enable centralized control of typical home electronics including air-conditioners.
Wi-Fi (registered trademark, the same applies hereinafter) has evolved as a mode of data communication for such systems. Wi-Fi communication is becoming increasingly common in areas such as office buildings, hotels, and homes, mainly in regions such as Europe and North America. Portable terminals that support Wi-Fi communication are also rapidly becoming commonplace, and the demand for performing control of apparatuses or other such operations by use of portable terminals or other apparatuses is expected to increase. For instance, the adoption of energy management utilizing application programs that run on portable terminals is expected to increase. Further, there have been introduced systems that enable management of the operational status of home electronics and remote control of home electronics through application programs that run on portable terminals.
Communication apparatuses that provide communication between apparatuses by use of Wi-Fi communication have been known (see Patent Literature 1). The communication apparatus described in Patent Literature 1 includes a pivotable cover. Pivotally moving the cover switches states between a visible state in which all the arranged indicator lamps are exposed, and an invisible state in which all the arranged indicator lamps are shaded. With the communication apparatus described in Patent Literature 1, all the indicator lamps are shaded and rendered invisible when there is no need to check the communication state or other operational states. This configuration ensures that lighting and flashing of the indicator lamps do not become visually annoying to the user.